Splinters on an Elephant's Caboose...

Joan Walsh, in Salon, details the problems that the Repubs are having right now in fielding a candidate that could potentially take on Hillary Clinton.   Cruz is a nutcase,  McDonnell is a court case, and Christie is a head case (soon to be a court case).   Then there's the Pauls - Rand and Ryan - who both have a boatload of baggage (owing in part to their devotion to all things Ayn).   Finally, there's Jeb - son of a Bush and brother of a Shrub.  

So who else do they have, you ask?

My advice - don't take any of these characters lightly.   There are still over 2 1/2 years to go to Election 2016.   We have a corporate press that doesn't take well to progressive messages - hence we're served bank-and-business-friendly, so-called "liberals" like Clinton and Obama.    Many within the banking and business community have openly stated their admiration and/or support for Chris Christie (the most dangerous of this bunch, despite his problems).   The Repubs are well-funded and well-backed, and you better believe that the Brothers Koch will be opening their treasuries (never mind their wallets) in an all-out push to get their guy in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue - especially if the 2014 elections mean that the Repubs take over the Senate.  

It's too early in the game to take eyes off of the ball.    The Repubs are by no means out of this, and Hillary is by no means guaranteed the Oval Office.

Quibbles and Bits, Picture This Edition

I can't take credit for this one, but for your edification and amusement, I submit:

My impression is that when you strip away all of the nationalism, jingoism, racism, and pick-your-ism, what you are left with is what the picture describes.   

Who draws those lines, anyway? 

And "Criminal gangs", indeed.  

What's your take?

Quibbles and Bits, And So This is New Years…and What Have We Done? Edition

More mental morsels and other chewy bits, enough to get us through the Same Old Laying and Signing brought on by the previous night’s Festivities:

>> The Great Jobless Benefit Run-Out

            The House’s inaction on extending jobless benefits (or at the least, using it as a political hostage as they are so apt to do), strikes me a bit as odd coming from the Republicans, since one of their chief strategies is based in the infamous Jude Winewsky “Two Santa Claus” article in the mid-70s.    Thom Hartmann riffs on this frequently – only this time, the Repubs can’t blame the Dems for “killing Santa Claus” in the minds of the voters insofar as the social safety net is concerned.    Sounds like bad electoral strategy – but many of the recent midterm polls are actually favoring the Repubs.   Stay tuned on this one…

>> Wither Senator Warren?

 Look for some interesting goings-on in 2014 between Elizabeth Warren and her wing of the Dem party, and the Third Way (read: Clinton) camp.   Warren has already said she won’t run, but she carries a thought virus with her (known as economic populism and an itch to regulate the god-damned banks) which the Third Way crowd want’s to quarantine.    Here’s the article in Daily Kos, containing links to the Third-Way Op-Ed condemning her and the lovely list of the Third Way supporters.   Think that the fact that the vast majority of those folks are investment bankers just happens to be a coincidence? Hmmmmm...

>>Chris Hedges’ Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt

            This book should be required reading in any institution of learning at any level.   He, along with illustrator Joe Sacco, visit and describe several of the US’ most egregious economic “sacrifice zones”, among them Pine Ridge, South Dakots, The Appalacians and the moonscape that Big Coal created there, and Camden, New Jersey.   His writing style is customarily direct and non-academic, and Sacco’s illustrations lend a certain quality of humanity to the words that photographs can’t match.   In short, the book describes the economic conditions and crises that lead ultimately to the Occupy movement, where the book ends.     Read it.  And weep, for what we’ve become as a nation.  

More later. 

The Pope and The Rhodes Scholar

It shouldn't take a Rhodes Scholar to figure out what Dr. Maddow states in the above graphic.   It's been obvious for the last 30-plus years, and has touched all of us in one form or another in that space of time. 

What's rattling the right-wing even more, however, is the recent economic rhetoric delivered by Pope Francis.   This type of speech should not be surprising, considering that Pope Francis has direct experience from the Friedmanist economic experiments conducted in South America and has seen all of the wreckage those experiments created, human and otherwise.  His recognition and calling out of the fraud that is modern economic thought (as displayed by Friedman and his followers) is welcome to hear, no doubt.    But don't get too excited about the possibility of a sea change at the Vatican when it comes to other issues - women's standing, gay rights, etc.   This is the Catholic Church, after all.   

The Repubs thought that the Teabaggers and America's changing demographics, not to mention the attitude differences those changes bring, were challenges enough.   Now they may be losing the unspoken endorsement of the Catholic Church.    

This is getting good.   Stay tuned.  

Quibbles and Bits, Reverence for the Reverends edition

More mental morsels for your chewing pleasure...

>>Charlie Hunter and Scott Amendola made their jazzy duopolistic presence felt at Harlow's in Sacramento a couple of evenings ago (www.charliehunter.com, www.scottamendola.com).   I nearly always recommend just about anything Charlie Hunter does, in large part because of his unparalleled ability to play both guitar and bass parts simultaneously on his custom 7-string guitar.  (What’s more, the guitar parts sound like guitar parts, and the bass parts sound like they were played on an upright.)  And while his chops are, as some say, sick, his taste - knowing what to play, when to play it, and how to play it, is what sets him apart from the wannabes.      Scott Amendola’s playing, at first glance, seems almost free-form as he navigates his kit (complete with heart-shaped gong) like one of the deities you see on a East Indian or Tibetan thanka painting.   But he and Charlie have that seemingly extra-sensory perception, and it was on display tonight.    

Check ‘em out.

>> Saw What Would Jesus Buy earlier this evening.   It is the second documentary film about activist/performance artist/hell-raiser Reverend Billy, with this Church of Stop Shopping in tow (www.revbilly.com).      The film succeeds in showing a multidimensional portrait of the man and his cause - demonstrating the excesses and consequences of consumerism.   Besides the often laugh-out-loud humor of his performances and the lyrics he writes (parodying such classic Christmas carols as Deck The Halls and Joy To The World), it shows the seriousness with which he takes his mission.   He is shown walking the walk (getting arrested at Disneyland, getting kicked out of malls and stores, being banned from all Starbucks in California), as well as talking the talk as only he can in the faux-Billy Graham style.   He deals with his troupe’s bus being rammed by an 18-wheeler on an icy road, resulting in 13 hospitalizations.    He is also shown with his wife, expressing a sincere doubt about whether his message will have any effects, or have we as a society been so brainwashed by consumerism that it’s now an irremovable part of our cultural DNA.

One cannot expect movements like this to have results overnight, or even within the historical finger snap of a few years or even a decade.    Changing attitudes like the deep strand of consumerism in our culture takes generations to fully realize.   What Reverend Billy is doing is sowing the seeds of change, seeds that like their literal counterparts, take time to germinate and grow - and that assumes that the soil in which they are planted are fertile.    It may not seem like it now, but with the rise of the Transition movement, the rise of the “sustainability” concept, and the awareness of the limitations of unfettered capitalism articulated by the likes of Senator Bernie Sanders and Thom Hartmann, our soil may be receptive to the concept to a life beyond consumerism.   Perhaps the soil is hardened at the first few inches (our current generation), but if you dig deeper (the future), you’ll run into some receptive soil waiting for Reverend Billy’s ideas to take root.

It may also be possible, that if the predictions made regarding economic collapse come to fruition (see Mike Ruppert's work, and Thom Hartmann's recent book The Crash of 2016), then a life beyond consumerism may be made for us.    

The Truth About Who We Celebrate on December 25...by John Fugelsang

Better Way than a Third Way...

Check out this post in Salon regarding the recent attempts by the Democrats to cut Elizabeth Warren's bank-regulatin', give-em-hell ideas down to a size small enough to drown in a bathtub.   Don't want to offend those that really own this country (and both political parties) now, do we?  Don't want to see all that effort Billary spent gathering corporate cash into the Dem coffers go away to the Repubs now, right?   Make nice with corporate pigs, or else...

This is why we need more than two parties in the political system, along with instant run off voting.   The powerbrokers at the Democratic party know damned well that they are perceived to be the lesser of the evils right now (considering the kookiness of the Teabaggers), but lesser of evils is still evil to me.   

The PTB have set up a nice, neat dichotomy.    You can vote against the Repub, or against the Dem.   But how do you vote against Goldman Sachs?  Or B of A? 

New flavors on the plate...

As you may have noticed, my updating of this humble and not so obedient blog has been sporadic, at best.   Thus, I will be making the following changes:

1.  I'll try for a weekly-minumum update schedule.   One post per week, by Saturday at the latest.   Even if it's one Quibble or Bit;
2.  I'm expanding the purpose of this blog to include cultural and arts commentary, especially music.   I'm finding that I've got quite a bit to say about the sordid state of popular music these days, and have some ideas as to how we can improve what we hear on our perpetually-plugged-in earbuds.  

So - new purposes, new stories, new flavors of Quibbles and Bits.   Stay tuned for a new entry by the end of this week...

Sir Nicholas Winton

It is often said that our greatest heroes are those who simply go about their heroism without advertisement or herald.    Sir Nicholas Winton kept his heroism a secret for nearly half of a century. 

It is often discussed, about the effects of one action rippling through time and history.   
It's not only the people he directly saved (many of whom stood up in acknowledgement at the end of this video) that owe their lives to him.   It's their families, and their children (and in turn, their children), that Sir Nicholas Winton made possible, that owe him a debt.  

We all do.     

Quibbles and Bits, Hitches, Glitches, and Stiches Edition

In regards to the Obamacare website kerfluffers emanating from certain elephantine backsides, a couple of comments:

>>I would agree with the assertions that the Administration was ill-prepared for the site roll-out.   Considering how the Repubs would pounce on any perceived failure of any element of the program, an extra bit of care - updated servers and infrastructure, better-written code - should have been taken.   Would have, could have, should have...

>>...but the milk has been spilled, now's the time to clean it up.    I can see the fixes taking place through October and November, with a completion date being sometime in December.    Once that happens, there goes the Repub talking point...

>>We've heard a few things lately about pricing issues in the rural parts of the country vs. the urban areas.    It's still early in the game, let's see what happens as we get closer to year's end...

This should explain it all...

...I cannot take credit for this picture or the Photoshop.    If you claim copyright, I'll remove it.    But it's just too juicy to pass up - it explains, in a nutshell, the reason for the government shutdown:

Looks like the Boner Falls Dam is about to break.  Kiss your plum speakership goodbye, you for-sale freak.

Good Riddance.